NYTimes has a story on how the former New York mayor (and TIME Person of the Year in 2001) has built a fast-growing consulting business.
In its two years of existence, his firm, Giuliani Partners, has earned tens of millions of dollars by assembling an extremely broad range of clients, jumping almost immediately into the ranks of the nation’s most prestigious consulting firms, according to two industry guides.
A detailed examination of its business practices shows that the firm’s work for its base of 20 or so clients with at least two on different sides of the same issue stretches well beyond providing advice on policing and domestic security, the type of job that has produced the most publicity for Giuliani Partners.
The firm has been hired to improve public confidence in a horse-racing gambling operation. It has advised New York hospitals on buying bulk supplies, helped expand a California-based business that sells inexpensive wills, and set up an alliance with a large accounting firm to fight computer hackers.
More recently the partnership moved into the world of venture capital, working with Bear Stearns & Company to invest $300 million in security-related businesses, with Giuliani Partners to eventually share in the profits of businesses that succeed.
Taken together, the firm’s deals, carried out chiefly by a handful of former civil servants, have made the partnership one of the most novel and lucrative ventures ever begun by an out-of-office American politician, avoiding the familiar path of many ex-officials who join law firms or become lobbyists.
